At first it seemed that the bungalow was empty. He opened the front door and everything was quiet. Then he thought perhaps the baby was asleep and Anna was resting. He didn’t want to shout in case he woke them so he closed the door quietly and started to walk back up the path.

‘Sandy!’ It was Anna. She was leaning out of the workshop window. ‘Sorry, I didn’t see you. I was dyeing some yarn. Come on in.’ Ronald had explained to Sandy about Anna’s ambitions to set up courses in spinning and knitting. It seemed odd to him: an Englishwoman presuming to teach other folk the traditional island crafts. He would have understood if that had annoyed his mother, but she’d said very little about it.

He went into the large room that was already kitted out for students. She lifted a hank of yarn out of a big old pan with a pair of stained wooden tongs. The wool was a sludgy green colour. He couldn’t imagine anyone choosing to wear it.

‘What do you think?’ she said. ‘It’s a new recipe. Lichen. Pretty, isn’t it?’

‘Aye.’

He was surprised to see her working so soon after the baby was born. Amelia had taken to her bed for what seemed like weeks after the birth of his niece. Evelyn had gone down to Edinburgh to help out, to cook and clean and shop.

‘Is Ronald in? I ken he was out with Davy earlier, but he’s back now, isn’t he?’

‘He was,’ Anna said. ‘But he went up the road to see his mother.’ Sandy thought Anna still sounded angry. He had a picture in his head of a pan of soup standing on the Rayburn and ready to boil over. He thought that was how Anna was feeling: ready to boil over at any minute. It couldn’t be easy having a mother-in-law like Jackie living just up the hill and a baby crying and keeping you awake all night. ‘She phoned to say that Andrew’s had a bad day. Ronald went a while ago though, so he shouldn’t be long.’ She paused. ‘Do you want to wait? Can I get you some tea?’

Sandy wondered if his mother would have been more pleasant and easy to get on with if she’d had a little business of her own like this, if she hadn’t been forced to live her life through her sons.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Why not?’

He followed her when she walked through to the kitchen, carrying the sleeping baby with her in a basket. She was talking about some of the emails she’d had from women wanting to book on her course. Their enthusiasm seemed to have excited her. Sandy had never seen her so lively, so lit up.